Modern technology is transforming the 21st century’s warfare methods and constantly reshaping the existing strategic topography. In this whole process, the Space domain has emerged as a major platform to safeguard one’s economic and military interests beyond the national boundaries. Whether it’s about getting real-time information from all around the world or evacuating the civilians during any natural disaster, having space infrastructure will provide smooth assistance to your whole operational capabilities. In a similar line, China has developed an indigenous navigation system ‘BeiDou’ to boost its vision of Self reliance and to amplify its operational capabilities in order to secure its Belt and Road Initiative.
On 23rd June 2020, China sent its 35th satellite to complete its BDS3 Navigation constellation. With this launch, China has achieved the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and an independent platform to counter the USA’s GPS. During the 1990s, Chinese military officials realized their over-dependence on GPS and started working on their own Navigation platform. The first satellite was launched in 2000 but the coverage was limited to China only. In 2015, China began deploying 3rd generation satellites in order to get global coverage. China has spent more than $ 10 billion to secure the communication and information network for its BRI project. In the early 1990s, USA’s military strategist identified space-based navigation systems as one of the important factors for the “Revolution in the Military Affairs ”. Military officials recognized that a GNSS would allow the guidance of missiles to a precise position, which would provide a major advantage to the military.
During the Gulf War in the 1991s, US-led coalition forces drove out the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. The world witnessed a great revolution in the old existing strategic topography and realized the importance of the Space infrastructure. GPS based laser-guided smart bombs and cruise missiles were used during the operation ‘Desert storm’. In an interview, Maj. Gen. Paul Johnson, Director of Requirements for the Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Plans said “In Desert Storm, you had the ability to dynamically see what was going on in the battle-space and perform command and control in real-time and divert assets in real-time. You had the ability to navigate incredibly precisely and then the ability to apply precision weapons – one weapon kills one target at a time,”.
Countries like Russia and China soon associated it with the changing nature of modern warfare and the vulnerability of their strike based weapons ability. During the 3rd Taiwan strait crisis, China lost track of its ballistic missiles and concluded that it happened because of the unexpected disruption to GPS. This incident caused a major embarrassment for the PLA and then they identified their dependency on the foreign PNT system as a strategic vulnerability.
The space domain is included as a core key of the “Made in China 2025” strategy and wanted BDS as the base of the evolving high tech industry. Under President Xi Jinping leadership, China is constantly evolving its public and private space sector companies to explore the economic and military uses of outer space. Over the last one decade, China has persistently worked on its policies related to high tech and has invested a large amount of capital in the R&D.
BeiDou is one of the 16 mega projects under the vision of 2006-2020 Medium and Long-Term Plan for Science and Technology Development. In addition, China has also announced in its 2016 white paper about the implementation of the central and state policies in order to support the development of BeiDou application. In line with the same white paper, BeiDou would be free to use for all the users around the world. China has also taken the policy measures to establish the installation of BeiDou application in its domestic platforms, for instance, installation of BeiDou receiver on 80% of all buses and trucks in nine provinces.
As stated by Tai Ming Cheung “Beijing has also pledged funding for various sectors of the industry in numerous government plans, most notably the 2013 National Navigation Satellite Industry Medium and Long-Term Development Plan, which states that China will seek to have its companies capture 60 percent of the domestic GNSS applications market (and 80 percent of “important” applications) and become globally competitive by 2020. The plan also encourages the improvement of financial and taxation policies to help domestic firms in the industry expand to international markets”.
In the last few years, the highest number of AI-related research papers and more than one-fifth of patents are from China, which suggested the increasing research on the digital space and its applications.
As reported by Nikkei Asia “Data from U.S. satellite receiver company Trimble shows that capital cities for 165 of 195 major countries — or 85% of those capitals — are observed more frequently by BeiDou satellites than by GPS”. Beijing has already established operations in friendly countries to navigate its interest in strategic terms. During Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s trip to Pakistan in May 2013, both nations reached a consensus to create a new pattern of strategic cooperation and signed an agreement to bring in “BeiDou Satellite Navigation System” in Pakistan. Whether we are talking about UAVs, Naval ships, radars or Missiles, Beijing is continuously supplying the major military weapons and different platforms to Pakistan. It is possible that Pakistan will totally replace GPS with BeiDou in the next few years. Also, the Gwadar port plays an important role in this vision of connecting Asia to Africa through digital space.
The South China Sea has become a flashpoint between China and other countries of the region. The economic and strategic importance of this region is increasing with every passing day because of the advance technological impact on the security architecture. China’s DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile is considered as the utmost threat to the US military naval vessels including their major Aircraft careers. The precision of these missiles is speculated to have a hit accuracy (circular error probability) of 100 metres when launched from underground silos, and 200 metres when launched from a mobile platform. These lethal weapons are powered by the Beidou and their efficiency to hit the target is really a matter of stress. Besides, Russia is also in a process to deliver Su-35 fighter jets to China with integrated Beidou receivers.
For China’s BRI project, Beidou is an important component to ensure the massive flow of information throughout the whole network, this will allow China to work beyond its national boundaries. A massive China-led economic infrastructure and trading system, which is considered as the part of “Space Silk Road”.
“There is certainly an aspect of this that is about expanding influence, but part of it is likely also about economic security,” Alexandra Stickings, from the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, tells the BBC. With this satellite network, now China is able to upgrade the whole BRI project into the digital space too. According to research conducted by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, this information and space corridor comprising a vast network of undersea cables, satellite networks and terrestrial links could make China “one of the world’s most important international submarine-cable communication centres within a decade or two.”
All this was also the part of the “Digital plus” strategy of China, where China is developing the cross border financial information centre and forward digital economic cooperation among these nations. Having said that, Beijing is continuously promoting AI and ML related research and webbing a network to support this vision of intelligence manufacturing by 2025.
As announced by the Chinese government in 2014, the International MaritimeOrganization—the UN agency that sets safety standards for international shipping approved a Beidou-equipped receiver for the first time, viewed by China as a milestone in its pursuit for the system’s international adoption. This gives leverage to Beijing to spread its soft power across the world and challenges the dominance of the USA. Also, countries like North Korea and Iran will get the major benefits out of this system and this will allow them to navigate their naval ships without any reliance on the USA. Other than China, Russia and the European Union also have their respective GNSS but they are not able to challenge the dominance of the GPS.
In the 21st century, the world is watching the potential of Outer space assets and their contribution to the changing global scenario. From the Gulf war to Nagorno-Karabakh, the world has seen major reshaping of the traditional war methods. In the recent war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, we have seen how precisely the drone was able to counter the Tanks and Jets. The emergence of Non-Traditional security challenges has alerted the whole world. The Chinese military had understood this changing situation in its early days and now has sufficient infrastructure to counter any major threat.
On the other hand, countries like India and Japan are still in their initial stage of achieving the global navigation system, At present, there are only two major GNSS, which the world is using right now. It might be possible that the world will be bifurcated into two sides, one which will be using US-led GPS and on the other side China-led BeiDou. This could lead to a constant conflict situation between the two economic superpowers and will lead to the rise of emerging strategic challenges in front of the whole world.
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